[G-SQUARED]

G-Squared is a story about surviving abuse in a semi-autobiographical portrait of the artist’s lived experience. The main character, Gumball Girl, copes with her trauma by connecting with her Kaiju-inspired imaginary friends: Platypus, Wow-zah, and Shadowman, with whom she sorts through intense, heavy emotions through rap-style conversations with these parts of her identity. These imaginary friends help her face her fears. She often fights her Kaiju-friends through everyday challenges as she seeks to learn more about herself. Each scene and the entire script of this story revolves around rhyme schemes.

Gumball Girl believes she has super powers but doesn’t know how to fully utilize her abilities yet. Having not had the best support growing up, she spent a lot of her childhood stuck in her head, thinking in pictures. Gumball Girl often turned to visual art to communicate her feelings and expressions; this story spans her youngest memories from childhood through adolescence and college where she learns to find her voice through art.

Gumball Girl’s healing starts within the frame of this illustrative mindscape as she takes back her power and learns to love herself as a recovering addict. It took 10 years of recovery for Gumball Girl to get to a healthy weight through therapy, support and finding the right medicine. Gumball Girl eventually graduates with honors and receives her Bachelor’s Degree in Studio Art with a Concentration in Drawing.

In conclusion, Gumball Girl learns more about herself as an Advocate for Disability Rights and is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ Community and finds someone who truly understands and accepts her for who she is as a partner – she is now loved properly. Gumball Girl can be found today continuing to create stories as a Comic Book Artist and Illustrator. Gumball Girl still doesn’t have all the answers to her questions, so she continues to work with the Kaiju-friends and fight for equal opportunities for all because in the end, art will save us.

More art at: https://www.facebook.com/paperbagcomic

The “PaperBag Comic” series takes place in an unknown realm that reflects each character’s psyches (which are far from reality). As the protagonist, Liz learns to separate her anxieties from what’s real. She eventually finds her way back to reality (learning to shift from fear to love). 

These stories are about coming to terms with universal emotions. At one point or another in life, everyone feels doubt, love, fear, happiness, and others. Each page has no definitive structure and is more autobiographical documentation of the author’s innermost thoughts and feelings, portrayed in the form of organized chaos. This journey is about learning to persist with one’s anxieties instead of fighting against them, as people often do. 

Each character that Liz meets throughout “PaperBag Comic” represents a distinct emotion, ranging from feelings of doubt and depression to feelings of paranoia and mania. The psychological conditions that Liz experiences take shape as people, bringing these feelings to life through external dialogues and shared adventures. The character, PaperBag, represents the mask Liz wears to hide her true self out of fear of rejection. Liz hopes that one day she can be free to be herself. 

The lessons taught to Liz by these characters show her that too much doubt is debilitating, and through hope and acceptance of oneself, we become the best versions of ourselves. This story follows Liz’s journey of finding the ideal balance in life that she hopes to achieve.  

As Liz’s thoughts echo, they transport the characters to various mindscapes that reflect her hopes and fears. Throughout the story, Liz realizes that her conditions, and the labels associated with them, which lead her to doubt herself, are not limitations but are, in fact, her greatest strengths (without our flaws, we would not be ourselves). Liz finally learns to love her flaws and accept her mistakes, for if it were not for her shortcomings, she would not have gained the powerful insights and perspectives that shape her reality. 

In the end, Liz realizes she still has a lot of work to do. Some questions remain unanswered in her mind. Even so, Liz promises she will no longer forget her self-worth as an individual learning to recover from addiction and trauma. Liz learns to love herself in all her being and finds solace in a reality constructed of infinite possibilities, as love erases the masks we hide behind.